


The Call To Adventure

by kittydesade



Category: Jumper (2008)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every hero's journey must begin with the call to adventure. In this case, it's Griffin on the other end of the line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Call To Adventure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pollyrepeat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollyrepeat/gifts).



Griffin lurked on the ledge halfway up the building opposite the restaurant. Well, he wouldn't call it lurking, but David probably would if he caught him there. He was doing the Batman thing again, or maybe it was the vampire thing, one of those comic book people David liked to talk about had a thing. Where he was crouched with his knees pointed out and his heels pointed in, one hand on the ledge for balance. All he needed now was a fucking coat to flap in the breeze.

Coats weren't a good idea unless you really were Jumping somewhere high up and cold. Too off balance.

"Oh, what have I got here up my sleeve oh, what a surprise! It's a _rose._ The magical cliche rose of Antioch." David grinned his big idiot's grin as Millie smiled and pretended to be happy or impressed or some bullshit like that. Griffin could play both sides of the dialogue.

"Oh, you shouldn't have!" His falsetto truly was frightening. It was a good thing there wasn't anyone to hear him but the pigeons. "No, really, David, you shouldn't have, roses are so last year, mate." Dropping the falsetto, he scared even him sometimes. And it looked like they were done with dinner.

Griffin followed down the street, keeping ahead of them when he knew where they were going, which was depressingly often. For a fugitive from the Paladins David hadn't the foggiest fucking idea how to evade pursuit or avoid surveillance. Millie had an excuse, she'd only been there for the final fight and if he'd been in her shoes, he would have tried to forget the whole thing as soon as possible. If the Paladins hadn't caught up to them by now, well, she and David were probably prancing along like nothing doing. Pretending everything was all right.

He popped out in front of them when they turned down the side street to get to their hotel or something, he wasn't sure where they were going. Didn't much care, either. Millie yelped, David popped away and then back again when he realized who it was.

"Jesus _Christ_ , okay? You couldn't, I don't know, walk up like a normal person?"

"I like Jumping," Griffin lied without batting a lash. "Makes me feel sexy."

David and Millie gaped at him.

"So, what'd you do with my detonator, eh? What'd you do with my stuff?"

David didn't answer, not that he needed to, Griffin had found out all about that last fiasco and how that had ended. Mostly how that had ended. There were parts of it he didn't get, pieces he couldn't line up one with the other and it would take a lot of poking and prodding to get David to cough it all up, but he was pretty satisfied with what he had. Didn't mean he wasn't going to remind David that the other young man was in his debt, in his pocket.

"I'm sorry about your stuff, okay? I'm sorry, look, I'll pay you back..."

"Yeah, and what about my lair, huh? You going to pay me back for all the years I spent picking up all that information, all the work I put into..."

Millie looked between them, frowning. "Wait, what lair? David, what is he... that place you two were fighting at, where you took me?" She talked over him, but Griffin could hear her, separate the two threads of the conversation and get at least a half-decent idea of her. Not too bright or not too quick, one of the two.

"Yeah, sweetheart. That was my place he wrecked by bringing you straight there, rememebr? Leading the wolves right back to my door." He yelled those last five words, up in David's face. Not too bright, then, by her startled expression. At least, not too bright for hanging around with David Dim-bulb.

Who looked even more dim standing there gaping at him and searching around for an apology. "Look, I'll make it up to you, okay? We'll do some digging, we'll fig--"

Griffin's hawkish laughter interrupted him. Millie was shaking her head; he ignored her. "You'll do some digging. You'll do some _digging?_ No, you know what the best thing you can do for me is, pretty boy? Walk away."

David's lip pushed out, eyes darkening under his knitted brow. "I thought that's what I was doing, you're the one who sa--"

"From Jumping. Walk away. Don't Jump again. Don't ..." he waved a hand. "Carry on with your stupid tricks and impressing your girlfriend there..."

"Hey, leave me out of this," Millie snapped. Sounded more and more like the girl he'd first met by the minute. He glanced over at her.

"Hey, I mean, if you still want to see the world, I got a great view in Cannes, Paris is overrated but if you want the real French experience..."

David's arm came down between them. "Hey, you got something to say? You say it to me."

"All right. I got something to say." Up in David's face right back. Resisting the urge to Jump them both because he kind of wanted Millie to hear this. "You. Owe. Me. You come into my lair, into my _home._ You bust up my stuff, you trash years of hard work. You owe me, Davy boy."

Davy boy took a step back, swallowed. Brushed his palms off on his pants and glanced at Millie, which told Griffin who really held the reins to the poor sap. He didn't look around to check her expression in return. "I owe you," David repeated.

"You owe me." All pretense dropped, deadly serious. "That work, that information was the only way I had to stay ahead of the Paladins. Now that you've met the bastard, you know what they're like. They only got one thing for us, and that's a bad, messy death."

Millie stepped between them before David could get a word out of his gormless, gaping mouth, before he could finish what was working up to a really good rant. "Hold it, hold it, hang on a second here. You," she pointed a finger at Griffin. "Explain. Better. You," at David. "Shush a second. Give him a chance, okay?"

Because it was Millie, he did. With a lot of grumping. Poor bastard was wrapped around the girl's little finger.

"Explain, explain what?" Griffin pretended not to know what she was talking about, fingers scratching above his left eyebrow. "Explain why there are people trying to kill me? Oh, and your boyfriend, they're trying to kill him too. Guess he left that part out."

"Why?"

Both young men stared at her. "Why what?" Griffin spread his hands and waggled them to make her keep putting words together.

"Why are people trying to kill you? What is going _on?_ David told me some of it, okay, as much as he knows, but ..." She stopped, closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then let it out again. Made her shoulders slump down. "Okay. Um. Start ..."

"Okay, look," Griffin interrupted her zen or whatever it was she was doing. "Let me start by saying, we really shouldn't be talking about this in public." He Jumped out to some poor rich bastard's manor house up in New York state, big and grand but the guy was off in Scotland for some holiday. Then he Jumped back when they didn't follow him. "Well, come on. What are you waiting for, the Apocalypse?"

The next time he popped in on the great hall or whatever it was, the big front room, David and Millie popped in a couple seconds later. Good enough.

"Not much I can tell you about the whys," he started, while Millie rocked drunkenly on her feet and got her balance back. "Don't know myself why they do it, except that they're psychotic fucks. Call themselves Paladins, like to zap us with cattle prods, thousands of volts of electricity running through your body, you can't Jump." Just talking about it made him agitated, pacing up and down the floor, like he'd be trapped and doomed if he kept still. "Can't do much of anything but sit there and twitch. There's this one Paladin, runs most of them, the whole gang, far as I can tell. Big black guy, white hair, his name's Roland. You met him."

Millie nodded, she half remembered at least. "I saw him, yeah."

Griffin nodded back. "He killed my parents. Probably did for Davy boy's dad, too." David's fists closed; Griffin ignored him. "He's of the belief that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of flesh or something. Kill or be killed. Don't know what's with him and Jumpers, don't care, I just know he's after all of us and he's got a pretty big goon squad with a lot of amped up toys ready to kill us."

David took a couple of tries to say something. "Look, I'm..."

"Then Davy boy here had to go and blow up everything I had on the bastards, and now we're back to square one."

"No, you're not."

Millie said it quick, before he or David could keep talking. Before, going by the scared look on her face, she could come to her senses. David gaped at her and Griffin frowned. "Come again?"

"No, you're not. Look, yeah, okay, I get it, David owes you for destroying her place, he owes me for the same thing..."

"Hey!"

Both of them ignored him. "But if these guys really are after the both of you like you say..."

"What do you mean, if?" Griffin said while she talked right over him.

"...Then you can't do this alone, either. You look at anything you want, movies, history books, comic books..." Griffin snorted, half in disbelief. "No one fights a war on their own. Not if these guys have the kind of pull you're talking about, and Mark said they were government. Or acted like they were government, anyway. Enough to get to him inside a prison."

Griffin's head bobbed. "They're government, yeah. CIA, MI6, NSA, LOL, some organization like that."

"All right. So, first we set up a base of operations they don't know about. Move all your stuff there, that shouldn't be that hard..." she quirked a half-smile. "Between the two of you, you boys can do all the heavy lifting and I'll just sort it when you bring it there. And then we figure out a place to start."

"Don't I get a say in this?" David whined. Griffin punched him in the shoulder.

"Cheer up, mate. Don't think of it as losing your say, think of it as gaining a partner. You can be my sidekick."

Millie slapped her hand over her mouth and turned away, giggling. David glared at him. "Sidekick?"

"Evil twin, if you like. Dark side version? Padawan, you can be my Padawan apprentice..." He made a face. "No, 'cause if you're my apprentice you're probably going to be one of those types who goes crazy and ends up..."

"I am not your freaking apprentice, all right?" Millie was outright laughing. That couldn't help David's mood any, but it sure perked Griffin up. "All right. We can be the dynamic duo or whatever. Just as long as we don't have to wear spandex."

Griffin beamed at him, clapping him on the shoulder and dragging him into a tight, clenched-fingers hug. "Nah, we'll have trenchcoats. Big, fuck-off trenchcoats all in black with the cargo pants with all the little pockets for the ammo magazines. Guns. Lots of guns."

"Whatever, Neo." They started walking because Griffin couldn't stop moving, he had to be in motion all the time, probably even when he was asleep. Millie scurried to catch up with them as they headed down the hall, still laughing. "No. No guns."

"Hey, does this mean I get a cool trenchcoat too? Not the big guns from the Matrix, though, derringers. I definitely want derringers."

"NO!"

Griffin's laughter echoed off the walls.


End file.
